FACE
all you need
to face
the Medusa
is a mirror,
a sliver of mirror,
a shard, a fragment,
all are up to
it
all will do
why bother to
carry an ornate mirror, lug
a Louis XIV
piece of
gilded craftsmanship
into the Gorgon’s cave
that place
of ultimate, perversely
exquisite danger
or any of those bent, warped,
ostensibly satirical
crazy
circus fairground
magically distorting
mirrors
as if this insult to injury is the way
to strip Medusa bare of
her instantaneous
lethal charm
all that is left
of her femininity,
humanity
to confront
the monster
you
made a monster
thing mirrored out
of shadow refraction
face it, stand it down,
not to balk at
what
it can do to you
this aberration
which
let us never forget
was not
always so
was defiled and then
so hideously transformed
by nothing less
than masculinity itself
by those
same propensities to
heroism surging
unrestrained
within you
sanctioned and
given
covering fire
by divine wisdom itself
yes,
stare into that glass
you wish to use
as deadly
targeting weapon
before you
point it
at the evil that you secretly
fear
itself a reflection
proof that behind all
great celebrated
truth
redemptive victory
a horrible lie
as false
as any false window, doorway
trick of perspective
fiction of
dimensions in
true trompe l’oeil
poems 2 die for 